The imminent demise of the Nook — and the importance of DRM-free eComics

First of all, let’s counteract some of the clickbait. Barnes & Noble has not given its users a March 15th deadline for backing up their eBooks. To put it accurately, they are discontinuing support for third-party apps. Here’s the story:

“While we remain committed to providing a great digital reading experience to our customers, we are exploring all opportunities to reduce costs.”

That’s the sound of Barnes and Noble CEO Ron Boire sounding the retreat from the firm’s ill-advised venture into competing with Amazon’s Kindle with its own NOOK e-reader.

While his comments are simply reflective of an ongoing shift away by the firm from its digital disappointment, what is interesting is how many actions are now being taken to achieve this. Boire states bluntly:

“Our first priority is to significantly improve NOOK performance. During the third quarter, we reduced NOOK expenses by $25 million and recently took additional action to exit NOOK’s app and video businesses that will result in additional cost savings…we are actively engaged in exploring a number of alternatives to materially reduce NOOK’s expense structure.”

Of course, you’re seeing this bandied about on Facebook as if Nook users are going to lose everything they purchased on their device.